Fresh Eyes: powerful questions to ask in your business

Have you got fresh eyes? (And no, this is not a question about if you got to bed before midnight). If you have been running your business for any length of time, the answer to this question is probably no. Fresh eyes - that amazing ability to look at something very familiar (like your own business) and see it as if for the first time - is a tough trick to pull off. But as a business skill, it’s a really useful one to develop.

 Because fresh eyes give you a different perspective, and a different perspective on your business can bring fresh insights and new ideas: the very lifeblood of business growth.

When I worked in a large marketing agency in London, I named a questionnaire I devised for new starters ‘the Fresh Eyes Review’. Because what I realised was that people new to a business were guaranteed experts in one thing: asking questions. They were not yet eyebrow-deep in ‘well that’s the just the way we do things,’ and ‘it doesn’t appear too broken and I’m busy, so let’s assume it doesn’t need fixing’.

And this is just the same as the average business owner, only with the added issue that they are the ones that probably came up with the ideas, the ways of doing things, the plans and structures, so are even less willing to have a good poke around and see what could be different.

I use a set of Fresh Eye Questions with clients, to start to uncover all sort of interesting things that are going on (or not going on) in their businesses. They are a great way to start fresh thinking and kick start new ideas.

So what are these questions, I hear you ask? (See, you’re already asking questions, so this is going to be easy). Here are three that are great to start with and work really well as a mini Fresh Eyes review. First though, move away from your desk, grab a beverage of your choice and a notepad and pen. Even better, get someone else to ask you these questions – this makes them REALLY powerful – mainly because you can’t fudge the answers when someone is staring at you expectantly.

Question one: Why do we do it like this?

One of the most powerful questions you can ask about your business. Whatever you look at in your business – be it a process, a product, a way of recruiting or how you make the tea – ask this question. You may think you know the answer, but ask it anyway. Then ask the people around you and listen to their answers, they may well have a different response. And definitely ask the new starter, as they probably have no clue whatsoever why you do it this way, and their answer may prove very interesting indeed.

Jot down all the responses you collect and study them long and hard. Do they make sense? Are there compelling reasons why you do it like you do or do some of the answers stray into ‘because we’ve always done it like this’ territory? BAU (business as usual) may be BAU because it's the best way to do it, but so often, BAU is simply BAU because SOTUTDILT (someone once told us to do it like this). Which thinking leads nicely to our next question…

Question two: What if we do it like that instead?

Be brave and ask this question, because if you really want to improve your business, this is the killer question. You can jot down a whole raft of what if ideas… what if we outsourced this? What if we stopped doing this? What if we charged more for this?

This is where you can get creative – the more potential solutions you come up with the better. Before you ask and answer this question, take a couple of minutes to do a creative workout – an exercise to help you get into a creative frame of mind  - it will really help you create masses of potential solutions.

Then consider each ‘what if’ you wrote down. Which provides improvement? Are there elements of these solutions that you can adopt? What are the benefits of doing it like that instead of like this? Explore a short list of solutions and evaluate how they could benefit your business.

And our final Fresh Eyes question of the set…

Question three: What do other people do?

So whilst you are asking questions about your business, this is a great tertiary line of enquiry as it is all about helping you to see a range of possible alternatives to how you do what you do. Tt is not about copying, sending out a legion of spies to your competitors or losing a sense of your own unique approach. In fact, this question is best asked about a brand or business completely separate to yours.

Some of my favourites are: What would Richard Branson do? What would Innocent Smoothies do? What would Amazon do?

Because no matter if you run a cupcake stall or a pet shop, a marketing agency or an accountants practice, trying on the approach of someone else to get you a fresh perspective is going to help you think differently about your business, and might just get you the competitive edge you need.

So, why not try to grow your business with these Fresh Eye Questions? You may just end up asking yourself a fourth: why the heck didn’t I ask these questions before?

Hop over here to the Tool Shed to download the Fresh Eyes Questions.